Lewtrenchard Manor

Lewdown

Admirers of Sue and James Murray’s ‘characterful’, ‘beautiful old manor’ continue to sing its praises. ‘It is uniformly excellent, with high standards of hotel-keeping, comfort and service,’ says a guest this year.

Judges

Yarm

Guests roundly praise the ‘professionalism and charm’ of the Downs family’s ‘brilliant’ country house hotel. The Victorian pile stands in ‘lovely manicured parkland’ on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors; within, the ‘dedicated’ staff are ‘unstarchy’, ‘friendly’, ‘extremely attentive’.

Ardanaiseig

Kilchrenan

The scene is pure theatre: the Scottish baronial mansion, built in 1834, with turrets, chimneys and crow-stepped gables, stands against a backdrop of Loch Awe. Inside, owner Bennie Gray, an antiques dealer, has filled the place with ‘eccentricity’ and ‘a pleasingly old-fashioned air of country house grandeur’.